 The New York Times reports QAnon, now as popular in the United States, as some major religions poll suggests. 15% of Americans believe that patriots may have to resort to violence to restore the country's rightful order, the poll indicated. 15% of Americans believing that violence may be necessary to restore the country's rightful order. I mean, 15% might be seemingly small, it might seem insignificant, but to be the extreme, that is a huge number. This is, this is horrifying. Yeah, IMDbRange asks, are there going to be tax exempt? I mean, it's essentially a religion, is it not? It's already a cult, there's a lot of factors that lead me to believe that it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to characterize QAnon as a cult, but let's dive a little bit deeper. So as hopes fade for a bipartisan inquiry into the capital riot on January 6th, it's increasingly clear that the Republican base remains enthralled to the web of untruth spun by Donald J. Trump and perhaps even more outlandish lies beyond those of the former president's making. A federal judge warned in an opinion yesterday that Mr. Trump's insistence on the big lie that the November election was stolen from him still posed a serious threat. Presiding over the case of a man accused of storming Congress on January 6th, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the United States District Court in Washington wrote, the steady drumbeat that inspired defendant to take up arms has not faded away, and she'd be correct about this. Six months later, the canard that the election was stolen is being repeated daily on major news outlets and from the corridors of power in state and federal government not to mention in the near daily fulminations of the former president. But it's not just the notion that the election was stolen that has caught on with the former president's supporters. QAnon, an outlandish and ever-evolving conspiracy theory spread by some of Mr. Trump's most ardent followers, has significant traction with a segment of the public, particularly Republicans and Americans who consume news from far-right sources. Now I want to pause right here just to say that we are now months into Joe Biden's presidency. The QAnon conspiracy theory should be over right because the basis of this conspiracy theory was that Donald Trump was feeding information to a group of people under the moniker Q and he was giving all of these internal details as president, giving people cues and clues, but he's no longer president, so he no longer in theory has access to whatever information that Q supposedly had access to. All of the predictions that Q made, like many religious predictions with regard to the apocalypse, for example, have not bared out. I mean, there was this claim that Trump was going to arrest people on January 6th, or not January 6th, on the inauguration day, so January 21st I believe. Then it was March 4th, that was the next date when Trump would re-emerge and re-assume role of the president. And so the point is that this conspiracy theory should be over now, right? So anyone who believes in it now, when we're almost into, what is it, almost June? They're too far gone. There's no hope for them. Those are the findings of a poll released today by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Corps, which found that 15% of Americans say they think that the levers of power are controlled by a cabal of Satan worshipping pedophiles. A core belief of QAnon supporters. Oh my god. 15% of Americans believe that there is a cabal of Satan worshipping pedophiles. They actually believe 15% of Americans. That's more than one in ten people. Holy shit. The same share said it was true that American patriots may have to resort to violence to depose the pedophiles and restore the country's rightful order. And fully 20% of respondents said that they thought a biblical scale storm would soon sweep away these evil elites and restore the rightful leaders. Folks, this is pure delusion. I mean, the details are genuinely shocking. I'm perplexed reading. In 2021, when we all have smartphones, we have a seemingly infinite amount of information at our fingertips. And people believe that there is literally a Satan worshipping cabal of pedophiles and there's going to be some sort of, what was the word, biblical scale storm that's going to sweep all of them away. Folks, what the fuck? These are words I never thought I would write into a poll question or have the need to. But here we are, Robbie Jones, the founder of PRRI, said in an interview. I really feel that, Robbie. You can just, you can sense how exasperated these people are. Political scientists, you know, political psychologists, psychologists in general, they are genuinely just, they're tired of this bullshit. The teams behind the poll determined that 14% of Americans fall into the category of Q and non-believers. 14%, 14% composed of those who agreed with the statements in all three questions among Republicans only that rises to roughly one in four. One in four Republicans, guys. 12% of independents and 7% of Democrats were categorized as Q and non-believers. So imagine, like, I've got to ask this question. Who's dumber? Is it the conservatives who are pro-Trump who are Q and non or the anti-Trump Democrats who are Q and non? Like, I genuinely don't know who's more stupid in this instance. Like, what? 7% of Democrats. Holy shit, folks. Analysts went a level further. Created a category labeled Q and non-doubters to include respondents who had said they mostly disagreed with the outlandish statements, but didn't reject them outright. Another 55% of Republicans fell into this more ambivalent category. So 55% of Republicans are at least Q and non-adjacent. Holy shit. I mean, maybe this is a little bit too premature. But we're doomed, folks. I'm declaring it now. We are fucking doomed, not just as a country, as a species. The chat's saying, please stop reading this. You're hurting us. I just, I don't know what to say. I don't, I don't know what to say. By the way, she's not chewing Goku. It looks like that, but she's actually chewing a bone right now. I don't know what you can see on the camera, but, um, yeah, she has Goku next to her. Goku is her newest toy and she's really enjoying it. It's, it's her new favorite. Um, yeah, this legitimately makes me feel so sad for humanity and the state of the country. I mean, how do you deprogram these people? How do you, how do you get these people to come back to reality? I mean, there's been some really, I think, um, stories that make me feel optimistic. That's not necessarily the best characterization. But I mean, there was QAnon, Karen, who was in Target and she destroyed the mask display. And then she kind of had this 180 degree turn, her husband intervened. So it seems like one of the things, uh, one of the factors that's missing from the true Kool-Aid drinkers is someone who is reasonable from their family or, you know, a loved one to actually bring them back to reality. Uh, but I mean a lot of these folks, I don't, I don't know how do you get them back to reality? If that many Americans think that there's quite literally a cabal of Satan worshipping, uh, blood drinking, uh, Adrena, what is it, Adrena Chrome? Is, is that the thing that they say that they're taking from the kids? Adrena Chrome, uh, sucking elites. I, I just, I, I don't know how we go forward as a country. I genuinely don't know. I genuinely don't know. And slain Maine, it makes a great point. Yeah. Oftentimes their families have to threaten to cut them off to bring them back to reality to just snap them out of it. An intervention. Yeah. Jeff Waldorf. I mean, if they don't have that, if they don't have that reliable person in their life, they're going to be far worse. I mean, for me, just personally speaking, I mean, this isn't necessarily the same thing. But, uh, when I have mental health issues, when I have anxiety, when I have panic attacks, having my husband or my mom to talk to, it genuinely helps bring me back to reality. To a state of normalcy or at least I'm able to cope with mental health issues. And it's not like conspiracy theories are tied to mental health issues. That's not the point that I'm making because they're not. But what I am saying is that to have somebody who you can kind of lead on as a crutch, it really does make a difference. And this 15% of people, like either they're isolated and they have no one or they're in some sort of a group. And this group that they formed, perhaps it's on Facebook. Maybe they're reinforcing each other's beliefs because what we've seen on Facebook is that a lot of these folks who were never conspiratorial, but who end up becoming anti-vaxxers, like they'll join these new mommy groups on Facebook. And then from there, they'll kind of get sucked into this anti-vaxx vortex. And then all of a sudden they're talking about not wanting to vaccinate their children. I mean, I've seen this firsthand. And just people in my own social circles who were never anti-science or anti-vaxx. They were just kind of normal people. And then, you know, you're going to become a parent. So you want to do your research. You want to join mommy groups on Facebook because that allows you to kind of get the input of others with more experience and expertise and just, you know, general tips. It's always helpful. And a support group is great. But on Facebook, on the internet, it's leading people down these really weird paths. So, um, yeah, there's not much left to say, but if QAnon is now as popular as major religions in the United States, this is truly, truly troubling. David Dole is so much better. Trust me, folks. He's doing a great job. He really is. Okay.